


Landed

by thalialunacy



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-08
Updated: 2009-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:45:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where the show got cancelled and Danny moved west with Rebecca.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Landed

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: Dan doesn’t so much as like California.  
> Categories: Romance, Slash, Angst, mild-AU  
> Warning: Author’s first _Sports Night_ fic. Follows canon up to mid- _Quo Vadimus_ , then wanders off on its own. Also, the author doesn’t know the first thing about sports.  
> References to/from: Ben Folds’ song [‘Landed’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vPygzPSg8M), _Dogma, House MD_ , my BFF Erin, and _Guys & Dolls_.  
> Disclaimer: Sorkin’s kids, these characters are. I sincerely doubt he’d mind me writing about them, so please don’t sue.

The airport crowd is crushing, as usual, but it’s a crush I kind of get off on, as usual. It sucks the air out of my brain and replaces it with, well, something that feels like crack, so my head kind of spins and I can’t _not_ smile. It’s _people_. People going _places_ , or coming _from_ places, and meeting _other_ people, people that they are then _ridiculously_ affectionate with, and it’s just _nice_. Worst word ever, yes, but hey, I’m a little off my game. This is only, oh, the most important ten minutes I’m going to have in my life.

Well, maybe.

I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans—God damned New England summer humidity is one thing I did _not_ miss—and take my cell phone out of its pocket. I deliberately have not put his number on speed dial, the whole fourteen or so months I was in LA, so I have to search through the list of contacts, and I’m so wigged out that I pass it twice and have to scroll back with shaking hands.

My hands haven’t shaken in a long time. I need sleep, I tell myself. And some food.

Oh, and I need Casey.

\---

“There's good fruit in the green room,” Rebecca said to me.

“Yeah.” All over, I was Casual Dan, ready to rumble, but Casey’s words, the ones telling me to move on, to leave him, were stuck, flashing in my head like neon lights at a strip joint. Everything was neon, actually, and it was so cacophonous I couldn’t even make out individual words anymore. And that was the part that really freaked me out, I gotta say.

“You're canceling dinner.” Well, she’d always been a smart girl. It made my heart ache, a little, in that one spot.

But. “You know what? This isn't the best night.”

“Danny, I can show you the divorce papers if you want. I carry them with me.”

Smart, but not psychic. “They made us a job offer in L.A., but Casey's gonna stay here. And I think I'm not. If it turns out Sports Night's over, I'm gonna have to make that decision and, frankly, I don't want you factoring into that.”

“I'm just talking about dinner, Danny.”

“I believe if I have dinner with you tonight, I'm gonna want to stay here a long time. So I was wondering if—“

“You’ll like California.”

I paused. She held my gaze, looking so hopeful that the ache came back a little stronger. “I will?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll like California?”

“I like California.”

“But you’re not there anymore.”

“No, I’m not.”

“So how can you say you like California?”

“Because I don’t like Steve.”

“You and me both.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I have a show to do, Rebecca.”

“Yes, I know. And afterwards, we’ll talk about California.”

I looked at her. She was beautiful, she was smart, and she was clearly asking me to stay with her. “Okay.”

\---

We’ve kept in touch. Of course we have; it’s not like we could do otherwise when we’d been in each other’s pockets for six years as coworkers and friends for five years before that. But ‘keeping in touch’ is what people say when they know they’re not doing everything they can to maintain a friendship. It’s the label we put on something when distance and time and life are gnawing away at a once-strong relationship.

It happens to all of us. Don’t think I’m the bad guy, here. I’ve done enough of that.

\---

“Esther, you have truly outdone yourself. Isaac, you’d better keep an eye on this woman, because I think I’m getting a little bit of a crush, here.”

“Thank you, Daniel.” Esther kissed me on the cheek while Isaac gave me one of his Looks. Then he took her elbow and I found myself alone on their huge, empty porch. I suddenly wanted a cigarette to go with my fourth whiskey sour, and I wondered if Dana had any. The screen door opened behind me, and I started to ask. “Hey, do you have any—“

Then I realized it was Casey’s gangly form walking up to me, and I stopped mid-sentence. “Any what?” he asked.

“Any cigarettes. I was going to ask Dana for a cigarette, only you’re not Dana.”

“Astute observation.”

“Thank you.” I swallowed another mouthful of liquor. Too much sour mix in this round, I decided. Next time I’d just ask for it neat.

“How many drinks have you had, anyway?”

“A couple. It’s a good party.”

“Yeah, it’d better be. It’s an End of an Era party.”

“Bad news if those suck.”

“Bad news indeed. Very portentous.”

I turned to him abruptly. “So does this suck?”

“Danny…”

And just as abruptly, I turned away again, waving my drink vaguely. “No, you know what, forget it.”

“Danny—“

“I said forget it, Casey, I know you’re not—”

“Shut up, Danny.” He somehow had gotten right in my line of sight. “Of course this sucks. Our station got shut down, our show got canceled, you’re moving to Los Angeles, and you’re—“ He stopped, looking disgusted with himself, and stepped back. The air between us lengthened out again.

“I’m what?”

“Nothing.

“Casey.”

“Nothing, Danny.” He faced me again, at least most of the way, but still didn’t look me in the eye. “I’m sure you’ll love California.”

I didn’t answer. I knew I’d hate California. “Is this about Rebecca?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“No.”

I blinked at my drink, then at him. “Wait, no it’s really not about Rebecca, or no it really _is_ about Rebecca?”

And when he looked at me instead of mocking me for my sentence structure, I realized that Casey’d had a few drinks too. Though that still didn’t answer my question, and I am one who is willing to work very hard to get an answer to a question, even to the point of humiliating myself and annoying others. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s new about that?”

“You’re taking this out on me, now?”

“No.” He paused. “Damn it. Yes, I am.”

And then there was this silence. I mean, except for the insects and the ubiquitous far-away bark of a well-off suburban dog, it was eerie, and I could feel the tick-tick of time slipping past us.

“You’re the one who told me to go, Casey.” My voice was quiet. And stubborn.

“I know.”

“So why would you say that?”

He didn’t answer right away. I glanced at him, and he was contemplating Isaac & Esther’s dark back yard instead.

“Everybody lies,” he finally said.

He looked at me then. His face was tight with tension, and anger, and something else I couldn’t quite figure—Wait, yes, I could. It was the same look I’d seen him give to Dana week after ridiculous week for far too many months. The same look I’d seen him give Lisa for nearly a decade.

The words kind of hissed out of me in a whoosh. “Oh, holy hell.”

He looked away. A muscle in his jaw jumped before he spoke. “Don’t worry about it.” And before I could think, he was walking back to the door.

“Wait, this is—“

But he was shaking his head, pausing in the doorway for only a moment. “No. This party doesn’t need to suck, okay?”

I stared at him. Stared at my drink. Swallowed. “Yeah, okay.” But the screen door slammed before the words were out of my mouth.

\---

He doesn’t answer. His phone is, in fact, turned off, but it takes my intellect a couple of moments to register that fact and prioritize it over the loud buzz of rejection in my head. I fwump down into the nearest truly uncomfortable airport chair while I listen to the recording. Succinct, per usual.

Then I hang up without leaving a message. I wipe my palms on my jeans again, and settle down to wait.

\---

“Dartmouth!” Natalie launched herself at me the way she tended to do, and I picked her up and spun her around. She was so _tiny_ , but she could kick my ass up and down the hallway and I loved her for it. “What are you doing in this time zone?”

“Just visiting.” There was a huge smile on my face, I knew it, because these walls, even though they were not the CSC walls, were still walls of people I knew, of lives I’d lived, and really, one tv studio felt like the next. Felt like home.

He was behind me kinda before I knew it, and way before I was expecting it, but Natalie’s face gave it away in time so I managed to… well, look normal, I suppose.

“Dan.” The hug was perfunctory, short. Manly. Made me kind of sick to my stomach.

“Casey.”

“I didn’t know you were coming into town.”

“Yeah, it was sort of short notice, just this thing with Rebecca’s parents… Just this thing.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” He shifted his weight, and I had to refrain from making the Awkward Turtle hand-motion. “So’d you hear about Griffey going back to Seattle?”

“Oh yeah, did he totally screw up his career with that decision or what?”

We went out that night, all of us, and before I left, he didn’t hug me. He stood beside me while everyone else was saying goodbye, his hand on my shoulder. The next day, Rebecca touched me there, on my shoulder, and without thinking I pushed her hand away.

She looked at me with those eyes of hers, but she didn’t have to ask. That night, when I got into bed after the show, her back was to me. And I didn’t reach for her.

\---

Jackass hasn’t turned on his phone when I call him again an hour later. Old habits die hard, I guess. So I wander around the airport a little; I get some coffee from the Evil Empire, buy a newspaper in Mandarin just because, check out the latest pulp murder mystery on the top 100 list. And then I call him again, even though it hasn’t been anywhere near a full hour. Patience has never been one of my greatest virtues.

And when on the second ring he picks up, the phone slips out of my suddenly boneless fingers.

\---

Dana’s wedding dress made her resemble a meringue. I refrained from telling her this, a fact which made me immensely proud of myself, but couldn’t _not_ tell Casey. We sat together at a table during the reception, the old _Sports Night_ crew, and had a pseudo-reunion, making all sorts of inappropriate food analogies and laughing until we cried.

Casey and me ended up alone at the table at some point after that; Natalie and Jeremy had clearly beaten a strategic retreat, and Lord only knew where the rest of them had gone, but I didn’t care. I’d be very angry about it ten minutes later, but for right then, I was just drunk and happy. Happy to be drunk, happy to be in a city with seasons, and happy to be with my best friend. My former best friend. Whatever.

“So I’ve been in LA for six months now, ” was my stunningly witty opening volley.

“Is that where you’ve been? I thought you had the flu.”

“And you still aren’t dating anyone.”

He rolled his eyes but fidgeted with his drink. “I see people.”

I clapped him on the back. “Casey, Casey, Casey...”

“Am I about to get a lecture? Because let me tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.”

“Well, in point of fact, I wasn’t going to lecture you, but now that you mention it—“

“Shut up, Danny.”

“Fine.” I took a drink and he eyed me for a minute, not believing I’d actually stay quiet.

After about twenty seconds, I proved him right. “Why didn’t you call?” I sounded distinctly like a lost little boy, and it made me wince, but I refused to take it back.

He stared at me. And stared at me some more. “I did call, Danny.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Except that I did.”

“No, you really didn’t.”

“I kinda think I did.”

An ominous feeling started swirling in my stomach. “When?”

“The first week you were there, right after your first show, I called and—“ His mouth closed abruptly.

“And what?”

He didn’t answer.

I inhaled, very slowly. “Rebecca.”

“Yes,” he said neutrally.

“She said something to you.”

He didn’t answer that, either.

“Casey.”

And when he looked up at me, it was that same look he’d given after the whole Dana debacle. His ‘I’m moving on so nobody else can screw me over’ face. “It’s okay, Danny.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Wait.”

He chuckled at that, and not without a little rancor. “I’m not a big fan of waiting.”

I leaned towards him, desperate to get him to see. “You don’t understand. I…“

But as he looked at me, my voice trailed off, because I realized what he already knew. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him, or that I was afraid of the repercussions, or afraid for our careers, or Charlie, or any of that.

I just wasn’t that guy.

\---

Somebody once said marriage is a gamble, because no matter who you marry, one morning you wake up next to somebody else, and you just take it how the dice falls.

And we never actually got married, Rebecca and me. There was a ring, there was some planning, there was talk of forever, but we never signed anything. So don’t think I’m the bad guy there, either. You might be right, and nobody wants that.

\---

“Were you ever going to tell me Casey called?”

I didn’t look at her, because I already knew exactly how her mouth was becoming pinched, how her knuckles were turning white around the curling edges of the book she was still pretending to read. “Dan,” she said finally, “that was a long time ago.”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you still care?”

“That fact that you’d even ask me that question—“ I stopped, suddenly nauseous.

“What? The fact that I’d even ask you that question means what?”

I stood abruptly. “I need a drink.”

“It’d be career suicide,” she called out to me as I reached the kitchen.

My mouth twisted. “It’s just a drink, Rebecca.”

She ignored that. “He’s in love with you, you know.”

I considered my beer. “I know.”

“Well, I think you know how that would look to your testosterone-ridden fans.”

I walked back into the living room, my mind click-clicking, and stopped in front of her easy chair, sure I was going crazy. “Wait. You—you warned him off, didn’t you?” And once I’d started, I couldn’t stop it. It was all rolling down a bizarre, Melrose Place-esque hill, and fast. I knew, I knew in my head that she was the same person she’d always been, that she had _always_ been tenacious and willing to bend the truth—and other people—if it suited her and she didn’t see too much harm in it, but suddenly when I looked at her, I didn’t recognize her at all. “You said you’d tell the network if he called me again?”

“It wasn’t like that, Danny. No matter how much you wish it had been.”

“What was it like, then?”

She finally looked up at me then, and I realized that she’d been waiting for this. Was resigned to this happening. “The numbers don’t lie. Allegations of homosexuality tank nearly every career they touch, especially in the sports field.”

The storm gathered in my head, buzzing and crackling in the silence, and her eyes went back to her book. “The numbers,” I finally said, my voice very calm.

“Yes.”

“The numbers don’t lie.”

“Yes.”

And then the storm broke, and there was only silence in my head. “I turned out to be a jackass, didn’t I?”

“I would think hiding something so large could qualify, yes.”

“So you did something bad to me with numbers, hoping I wouldn’t turn out to also be that guy.”

“Yes.” She looked up again, and the pain in her eyes took my breath away.

“God.” I sat down, scrubbed my hands across my face. “I’m sorry, Rebecca.”

It was mostly not a lie. I was sorry for all of it except what she thought I’d done wrong. And I _was_ sorry, deeply and pathetically sorry, that I had become that guy. But it didn’t change the fact that I felt like I needed a stamp in my passport just to be in the same room with her after that.

I’d told her long ago I wasn’t that good of a guy, and some weeks later, I proved it to her. Even as I opened my mouth, a part of me knew what was going to happen. A part of me knew exactly when she would stomp, what she would shout, and how close the bowl of Cheerios would come to hitting my head before thumping against the wall. Like a part of me had been waiting for it, too.

I was surprised when the bowl didn’t shatter, though. It just plopped wetly beside me, and I stared down at it, my head tilted like a Welsh Corgi. It suddenly occurred to me how much Welsh Corgis amused me, and I chuckled at my train of thought.

Then a spoon flew past my left ear. I paused, picked it and the bowl up, and took them to the sink for rinsing. I couldn’t look at her. I also couldn’t not say something. “I’ll have to give notice.”

“You’ll have to get a hotel room.”

I considered it, briefly. “Yeah, that’d be better.”

And then I heard her breath hitch behind me. My hands stopped their motions with the dishes after I heard the first choked sob; I saw they were shaking. And when I closed my eyes, tears I hadn’t noticed escaped down my cheeks.

\---

I scramble to get the phone back up to my ear, praying he hasn’t hung up.

“Casey?” Car horns are blonking in his general direction.

He’s not talking. I can hear him futzing with something. Probably the earpiece, mechanically inclined as Casey isn’t. Then, “Yeah.” The line crackles for a moment, and then all I hear is a muted version of New York street noise. And the pounding of blood in my ears. “Danny? What’s going on?”

“Come pick me up,” I say in a rush.

“What?”

I exhale, try to count to ten but only make it to five. “Come pick me up.”

“Danny, I don’t under—“

“Just come get me, Casey. I’m at JFK.”

“I still don’t understand.”

I smile, because I know he can’t see it. “You think I’m surprised by this?”

“Shut up. Explain what the hell you’re talking about. You’re—“ His swallow is audible. “You’re back in New York?”

“Yes. I’m here. I’ve… landed. Wondered if you still—“ My turn to swallow; I swear my voice is going to crack otherwise. “You know.” I can’t elaborate.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Two moments. “And if I still do?”

“Then come pick me up.”

The thread of all that is holy in my life twists into knots in my gut as I wait for his answer. I haven’t thought of a Plan B, I realize somewhere in the back of my mind. I have no idea what I’ll do if he decides not to come. My palms are so sweaty I feel the phone trying to slip out of my fingers again, and when he finally speaks it’s so quiet I have to ask him to repeat himself.

“I’m on my way,” he‘s saying again, this time with that ‘Geez, Danny, do I always have to spell it out for you?’ tone, and Christ, I’ve never been so relieved in my whole damned life. “Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you. Casey, I—“ But the words, inadequate and weak, die in my throat. It’s a good thing I write sports copy and not romance novels. “Thank you.”

I can hear the smile. “Any time, Danny.”

 _Fin_


End file.
